step by step
by Human Customs Still Elude Me
Summary: From twenty-one guns to the Dwarf in the Flask, Roy Mustang's life is full of bitter moments.


Roy Mustang is five years old, and there's a man in a uniform at the door.

The man is talking softly to his mother. Roy only hears a few words. Trenches. Guns. Fire.

"I'm sorry for your loss," and the man is gone, and his mother is crying, and before he understands so is Roy.

There are twenty-one guns and tired men in uniforms, and his mother is crying, and Roy is confused and tired and he doesn't understand.

Or maybe he does, but Father will come back like always. He said he'd never lie, and soldiers never lie, but there are gears creaking and flowers on the ground and his Aunt Chris is crying, so Roy starts crying.

He doesn't leave the cemetery until the sun goes down.

Roy Mustang is seven years old and his mother hasn't been home in two days. He's not going to school, and he's afraid and alone.

A man in a uniform is at the door, and then he's sitting in the hospital and a woman he doesn't know is talking to him. "There was an accident, your mother is gone."

And then it's the same all over again. He's standing in a cemetery, crying because he just doesn't _understand,_ but his mother is gone and his father is gone and Roy doesn't know what will happen to him.

A man in a uniform rests a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for your loss," and Roy is alone, sitting in an unfamiliar bedroom above his Aunt Chris's bar, staring at a bare wall and everything feels wrong.

Roy is ten years old when he finds an alchemy textbook. It's all he reads for weeks, understanding almost nothing but desperate to know what it means.

At school, his teachers tell him he needs to focus, but instead, he painstakingly draws a transmutation circle in his textbook. The coins he puts in the circle are barely changed, but it's something.

He finds more alchemy books, and then he hardly leaves his room for months, poring over the diagrams and cramped handwriting that he has to read ten times before half of it turns into words. Reading leaves him frustrated with a headache, but this is absolutely worth it to him.

Roy is fifteen when he meets Berthold Hawkeye.

The coins that almost look like birds finally do what he wants them to, and he couldn't be happier. Even though some small part of him knows Hawkeye is mad, he's overjoyed to find someone willing to teach him.

The thrill of alchemy is almost muted by the girl with short blonde hair, who cooks and cleans and is far too quiet to be twelve.

Some part of him is angry beyond belief that she would be treated such a way by her own father. He knows he can't change anything, he knows the most he can do is be kind to her.

"I'm Riza."

Roy is twenty. Berthold Hawkeye is dead, and Riza is showing the notes on her back, and Roy finally understands flame alchemy.

Six months later, and Roy is the youngest state alchemist in Amestris' history. Aunt Chris is proud of him. The girls in the bar are happy for him, and his childhood friends are overjoyed.

Maes Hughes is overjoyed.

But then he's shipped off to Ishval, to a war with no end in sight, and Aunt Chris is quiet, and the girls in the bar aren't smiling anymore.

Roy Mustang is twenty-three, and he's surrounded by fire, and he cant help but wonder how easy it would be to run away, run until he drops from the heat and just lie there until he's found and court-martialed, or found and put in a body bag.

He doesn't run. He doesn't do or say anything that could get him court-martialed, or killed, or discharged(honorably or dishonorably).

Roy knows the best he can do is never question an order. Never disobey anything, no matter how atrocious it may be.

He hates it, and he hates the military, and in the depths of smoke, he hates himself.

Roy Mustang is twenty-five, and he knows the transmutation circle on the floor. He sees the blood, the dust, the shadows, and the empty armor stand and he knows something awful occurred here.

A boy in a wheelchair, an empty suit of armor, and Edward Elric stared back at him with fire in his eyes, his expression too determined, too harsh for a child like him.

A year later, the boy is a state alchemist, and Roy is torn between pride and horror. He knows what could happen to Edward and Alphonse, and he's afraid.

Roy is twenty-nine, and Maes is dead, and he doesn't know what to do.

There are twenty-one guns and creaking gears and a crying child and men in uniforms and it's too damn much.

What an awful day for rain.

Roy is terrified and angry, and his best man is bleeding out on the floor, and the homunculus's claws have speared him through the side. His glove is torn to shreds, and Havoc isn't answering.

But there's a piece of broken glass and a lighter beside him and before he knows it he's carving a transmutation circle into his hand, fighting darkness as he burns the wounds closed, tending to Havoc, and running to Riza.

And then he's burning the homunculus, killing the unkillable.

He hits the ground, and Riza's hand is under his head, and after that, it's a dull haze until he wakes up in a hospital with a dull ache in his side and bitter sting on his hand.

Roy knows he might die. He knows this is foolhardy. But the promised day is here. Central is theirs to command, but he knows he'll be called to Father when the time comes.

The day seems to go by at a snail's pace, but then they're fighting at the center of the country, and Riza is dying, and he knows there's no way out of this, but even as he says he won't some small part of his mind is desperately piecing together human transmutation theories.

He finds the one who killed Hughes, and he's _angry,_ and that piece of filth deserves to die. But he knows he can't do this to Riza, and he knows Edward, Riza, and Scar pulled him back from the edge.

But then he's knocked to the ground, and his hands are pinned to the ground, run through by Bradley's swords.

The Homunculus Pride has him pinned. The gold-toothed doctor is gone, and there's a blinding light around him, and it _hurts._ He's being torn to shreds and there's an awful feeling in his gut.

"One name is the world, or perhaps the universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps Truth, or all, or one, and I am also...you."

The gate opens, and Roy knows.

It's dark.

The man they call Father is talking. Ed is talking to him, and he sounds confused. How can he know Roy's physical state in this darkness?

And then Ed realizes, and then it really hits him, and a woman he doesn't know is trying to get him out, but then he's dragged across the floor and he feels the transmutation circle activate.

Everyone is yelling. Ed is...punching a homunculus that swallowed God? It's hard to tell, but he knows it's going well.

And then he hears the homunculus disappear, and the scraping of a pipe on concrete, the telltale sounds of transmutation. Ed says it's his last.

And then the Xingese girl is crying, and he's lending his coat to Al.

Roy Mustang is thirty, and his vision turns red. Then he's able to focus, and he never thought he'd be so happy to see Tim Marcoh.

It's a damn wonder he doesn't burst into tears when he sees Riza. She's pale, and tired, and needs to brush her hair, but she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

They leave the hospital when the sun goes down. Central is dark and dirty, and in the distance, he can hear a twenty-one gun salute.

He keeps moving forward.


End file.
